Anderson
by StArBarD
Summary: Yes, the most hated character in Sherlock. But wait, there's more to this bumbling forensic man than meets the eye. Beginning with 36 things You Don't Know about Anderson and looking into the daily life of the most loathed member of the homicide division. Don't click away until you give him a chance!
1. 1

**36 Things You Don't Know About Anderson**

**1.**

His first name is Mark. Why does everyone insist on calling him Anderson? Even friends call him Anderson. Even his wife calls him Anderson. His first name is Mark, and it's a good name, and he wishes that people would give it a try

* * *

**Apologies, my loyal readers who thought this fanfiction was kinda cool, for some reason fanfiction. net saw fit to delete it for reasons which are unfathomable to me. Therefore I am uploading it again and continuing right from where I left off. I suspect a Sherlock/ Mycroft arrangement behind the mysterious dissapearence.**


	2. 2

**2.**

He isn't all that crazy about dinosaurs. Don't get him wrong, they _are_ pretty cool; but he's not obsessed. The thing is: he brought his nephew to his office one day as a favor to his brother-in-law, and his nephew left some of his toys on his desk, a plastic brontosaur and T-rex. To his horror, he left to drive his nephew home and when he came back Sherlock Holmes was in his office, grinning manically, almost laughing. He wouldn't believe that they belonged to his nephew, and now he's been receiving dinosaurs from an anonymous poster for weeks. He thinks that it's not only Sherlock, but all of his division sending him toy dinosaurs and laughing behind his back.


	3. 3

**3.**

He loves chicken. He knows almost one-hundred ways to cook it, two hundred ways to prepare it, and if he wasn't married he'd eat it every night.


	4. 4

**4.**

His wife has learned to hate chicken. Among other things.


	5. 5

**5.**

He doesn't love his wife. When he's alone at night in an empty house, he'll walk up and down and look at each photo on the wall in the hallway. In the hallway is where she insisted on hanging the pictures of their first few dates, their wedding, and their honeymoon. He'll look at the pictures and see himself, smiling, happy, and wonder where the sunlight went in his wife. She just doesn't bring him joy anymore. When he starts thinking about sunlight, he'll listen to the hum of the air conditioning and think about her fireman in Brixton, and think to himself caustically: "at least I have the decency to wait until she's out of town."


	6. 6

**6.**

He's happy that he doesn't have kids. When he lies down beside his wife, on those rare nights when they both muster up enough courage to pretend to be a functional couple again, he watches her breathe, he watches the soft rising and falling of the moon-dyed bed sheets and think to himself: "This used to be arousing. I used to watch this for house and think it was as wonderful as watching the tide roll in on a moonlit night. I used to grab her and kiss her when she slept like this, unable to help myself. Now…" he might watch her for hours, fascinated by how uninterested he is or willing his love to come back, like a sudden swell. Or he might turn over and stare at the wall, thinking about how wretched he is to fall out of love like that and what a terrible person he is not to mention it to his wife. But then again, isn't she just as bad as him? They both know it; they both feel it, but neither one will admit to it. It's on nights like these Anderson is glad he doesn't have any children. He is glad he doesn't have to tell someone that he doesn't love his wife anymore. Glad that there is no one to answer to for infidelity.


	7. 7

**7.**

Sally was a surprise. It had been a long night of celebration; Lestrade had taken them to a bar to celebrate solving a particularly vexing case without Sherlock Holmes. Anderson had found and matched a fingerprint which had led them to track down and arrest the serial killer known as the Vampire of Winchester. They toasted him early in the night, but drank themselves into a stupor before midnight. After midnight, Sally said she had lost her car keys, when in reality Lestrade, in his drunken wisdom had taken them from her when she had tried to jump on the bar and sing to the song that had been playing softly on the radio at the top of her lungs, loudly and off-key. Anderson said he'd walk her home. Or tried to. But she got the message. So there they were: stumbling together from streetlight to streetlight when all of a sudden he wanted her. In his ethanol haze he wanted her badly. Before, at work he'd always thought she was beautiful, high-strung, but fun to be around, and witty; but now she was stunning and perfect. And clinging to his arm. His wife was gone, he knew, but he had never cheated on her before. All of his better senses inhibited, he brought Sally to his apartment, still laughing and burping alcohol vapors at each other. He doesn't remember exactly what he said, but he thinks he used some kind of poetry to seduce her. In the morning they were sore, angry, groggy and back to normal. And a bit horrified, but both kind enough not to show it on their faces. They simply agreed that it had never happened. When Sherlock Holmes ousted them, in front of a stranger no less, it was all Anderson could do to keep from melting into a puddle. In reality he went and hid behind the Forensics van and buried his face in his hands. It took a long time to restore a normal relation with Sally, but after a while they could stand to look each other in the face


	8. 8

**8.**

If she regretted it the first time, she didn't the second time.


	9. 9

**9.**

He was bullied in school. Badly. Don't ask him to show you the scar on his knee, because he won't. He didn't realize he was bullying the consulting detective until Lestrade called him out on it. After that he went and sat in the forensic van for a long time, thinking about his life. He hardly ever sees Sherlock, since the Freak (as he is formally known in the labs among the scientists) does his own lab work and experiments, but when Sherlock does show up Anderson makes sure that he's either far away, or tries to keep his comments limited to only actual bursts of anger. Old habits die hard though.


	10. 10

**10.**

He'd always wanted to be a forensic scientist. Even discovering that it was radically different from the forensics on the telly didn't crush his spirit.


	11. 11

**11. **

The idea of there being a Moriarty out there somewhere scares him. The world is just a crazy enough place to produce something like that. Which is why he attacks the notion so vehemently.


	12. 12

**12.**

His brother-in-law punched him in the face. When he came to he asked his wife what for, but she couldn't say. Now Anderson wonders if his brother-in-law was psychic


	13. 13

**13.**

He met his wife in elementary school. She had stuck her gum in her hair, and Anderson had just read a book on how to get it out. After elementary school she moved away and he met her again at a bar somewhere in central London. He never realized that they had gone to the same elementary school until they had been married for two years.


	14. 14

**14.**

He thinks Lestrade knows about Sally. He's not sure, but every so often Lestrade will give him a sad look or an angry glare when nothing is going on, and Anderson will wonder. He is sure of it when Lestrade catches him twisting his ring around his finger, and opens his mouth to say something. That something is choked off mid-sentence, and he strides off, very purposely to his office.


	15. 15

**15.**

He enjoys musicals. He just wishes they weren't so expensive.


	16. 16

**16.**

He is beyond excited for the Les Miserables movie coming out. But his wife refuses to go and see it on Christmas.


	17. 17

**17.**

When he flips through the telly, and sees shows about cheaters he gets a tight feeling in his chest. Even if you rationalize something, the guilt has a way of gnawing at you.


	18. 18

**18.**

He has dreams about being beaten up. Sometimes it's his brother-in-law, sometimes it's a stranger, sometimes it's his wife's fireman. At least once it has been Sherlock, Lestrade, Sally, his wife, and even that Rich Brook guy. No matter who it is, he wakes up in a cold sweat, usually alone, he'll get a drink of water, and he'll avoid that person for the rest of the day. Just to be safe.


	19. 19

**19.**

His favorite flower is an orchid. They're like colorful stars, and there are so many varieties, it's impossible to go wrong. He used to bring home orchids for his wife only on birthdays and anniversaries, and then he started bringing them only after Sally. Now he only brings them home only after she returns from her Brixton 'business trips'. It's passive-aggressive and he knows it.


	20. 20

**20.**

His dad abandoned his mom when he was four. There isn't a year that goes by when Anderson doesn't ask himself if it would have killed the man to give him one more year to get to know him. Just one.


	21. 21 & 22

**21.**

Anderson doesn't see what his mom thought was attractive in his dad in the first place. He was a goofy looking guy.

**22.**

He just realized he isn't one to talk.


	22. 23

**23.**

The most embarrassing thing he's ever done? Slipped on a banana peel. Why was it embarrassing? It was in front of Sherlock Holmes. Reputation= ruined.


	23. 24

**24.**

When he was twenty-one he helped his friend steal two-thousand pounds worth of alcohol from the convenience store where he worked. Don't tell Lestrade.


	24. 25

**25.**

When he was twenty-eight he got his first job as a forensic scientist and helped catch that same friend for murdering a shop-clerk in a robbery. Same store. Don't tell Lestrade.


	25. 26

**26.**

His friend never ratted him out. Even when they offered him a deal. Of course, he didn't know who had helped catch him, but Anderson always felt guilty for putting away such a good friend, yet also, a swell of pride in making such an impression. His friend didn't think of him as just another thief, he wouldn't sell out just anyone, he thought of him as someone who had his back, someone to protect. Hypocrisy aside, he was glad to have made such a friend. Don't tell Lestrade. Or Sherlock for that matter.


	26. 27

**27.**

Sour cream and onion flavored chips are his red-light food. If you give him a bag he can guarantee that you will never see it again.


	27. 28

**28.**

Sally likes chicken. Anderson doesn't believe in destiny, but come on!


	28. 29

**29.**

He doesn't leave his wife because when he looks in the mirror every morning and sees his goofy face and thinks about everything that has ever been said about him he realizes he probably won't get a second chance. He knows it's selfish, but he's scared of being alone. Maybe the wonderful thing about Sally is that she chooses him. She's like the breeze in the London streets; cool on your neck when she wants you, gone in a flash when she decides no.


	29. 30

**31.**

He finally found a way onto the internet forum where the DIs talk and he realized that everyone knows about Sally. They all think that she could do better.


	30. 31

**31.**

He finally found a way onto the internet forum where the DIs talk and he realized that everyone knows about Sally. They all think that she could do better.


	31. 32

**32.**

He reluctantly agrees.


	32. 33

**33.**

Whenever Sherlock tells him that his face is putting him off and Lestrade agrees and makes him turn around he gets a lump in his throat. At first it was just anger and indignation, but after all that has happened to him it feels like he's breaking down. Last time he had to blink back tears. He can't help but feel like he deserves it for being so stupid. At times like these, a breeze could cut through him like a knife.


	33. 34

**34.**

He will never let himself cry in front of Sherlock Holmes of Detective Inspector Lestrade. Ever.


	34. 35

**35.**

When he looks up at this, he sees thirty-four reasons why he's so stupid.


	35. 36

**36.**

If you gave him another day, he could site one hundred.


	36. Breaking Point

**This is the first of my short Anderson Vignettes. It has a prequal to wrap up all of the uncertain points, but it'll be next instead of first. Why? I'm not sure. Enjoy!**

* * *

Anderson stormed away from the body, furious. In a rage unlike one he had ever encountered before. His fevered pulse hammered away at the inside of his temples like two sledge hammers chipping away at the bone.

And who was following him but little-puppy-John-Watson?

"Wait." John said as Anderson broke out into the grateful night, gulping the cool, fresh air and trying to embrace the silence like an old friend. John's voice had broken his peace and now his anger flared up like a wildfire, eating away at him with great hot licks of flame.

"Oh just go and play nursemaid to your freaky-friend!" He screamed spinning on his heels and attacking John suddenly with great viciousness. "That's what you do isn't it? Keep him out of trouble? Feed him up?"

John froze in the midst of the onslaught. Seeing him wide eyes and startled just made Anderson want to scream more. What was he surprised about? Surely he had to know that when you test a man, eventually he's going to snap?

"Look, I don't care what you two do on your own time. But that..." He pointed at the body. His body. The one he'd been working on busily when Sherlock Holmes had stormed in.

"But that… that was mine. This is my work. This is my life." Anderson tugged on his vest, the vest he wore with pride, blazoned with the insignia of Scotland Yard.

"You can rattle on and on about 'deductive reasoning,' but I _know_ what a blowfly is. I _know_ how to read rigor mortis. I went to college for these things.

"Maybe I'm sometimes wrong, maybe I jump to conclusions…" Anderson felt his face, his red, flushing face become drenched in flaming sweat which poured around his eyes. The blood in his face seemed to all be trying to force its way out of his eyes.

"…But I am not incompetent!" He finished, but hurriedly thought of more while he was already in the mood to scream anyway.

"I'm not stupid, I'm not ignorant, and I'm not spineless! I know what you all say about me! Up until now I haven't cared! It hasn't affected my work! But this…is…**IT**!"

Anderson peeled off him protective jumpsuit and tossed it into the forensics van and stormed off into the night, ignoring the little chimes of laughter from the crime scene.

He was blind, uncertain of where the twisting unfamiliar road led, stalking into the pitch blackness without any idea of even how to catch a cab, let alone walk home. The garish buildings melted into dull, gray, block-like structures and the abandoned city roads opened into wide city thoroughfares.

He breathed deeply like a wounded bull, his pride in tatters around his legs, but his courage swelling in his breast. He had done it. He had said it. Now the only thing to do was to wait for things to fall apart around him.

His wife would be furious. Maybe this was the kick-in-the-pants they both needed to file for a damned divorce. It would feel good to let everything out in front of a judge. To let everything out of himself. He felt as though he'd been screaming, like he'd screamed at John Watson, for a long, long time and no one had ever bothered to listen.

Anderson paused and read the sign of a pub. "The Rat and Rabbit" and kept walking.

Although he was glad to have had been able to unload on someone, he felt a little bad that it had been John Watson who had borne the brunt of his anger. John had never said two words to him, and although he hung out with the freak all day, he seemed like a nice guy.

He coughed a little, and then a lot, realizing for the first time how sore his throat was, how loud he must have screamed in order to cause as much damage as he did.

Maybe he needed a drink after all.

He thought of Sally, how he'd first realized he loved her in the pub, how they'd stumbled home together that first, magical night; drunk beyond reason.

Quitting meant never seeing her again.

Anderson turned and looked at the sign, a black, wooden flag shadowed in darkness; then he looked beyond—up the road he had traveled down, up the path he had followed. Sally was up there. She would talk to him; tell him she agreed with him maybe. He could complain about his wife and she could complain about her father.

He kept walking down; down the road past the pubs and the shops, down past the houses and the fountains and the school.

Past the school, where the swing sets creaked eerily and the grass bore the depressions of hundreds of little footprints, his phone began to ring. It was Lestrade's ringtone.

"Where are you?" he demanded.

"I don't know." Anderson answered truthfully.

"What is wrong with you?" This was, apparently a rhetorical question, because Lestrade paused only just long enough to take a breath before continuing. "I have half a mind to write you up for this—what were you thinking? You can't just leave before the scene is cleared!"

"Yes sir." Anderson replied. There was no error in Lestrade's argument.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?"

Anderson paused before answering. This was not the question he was expecting. Good ole Lestrade, everybody's friend, the father around the homicide division. He smiled.

"Not in the classic sense sir."

"Don't be fresh with me Anderson, is something wrong?"

Anderson paused again. There was a lot wrong. He couldn't remember his father, his only friend had decided last year that a bullet to the head was a better alternative than financial ruin, his wife was cheating on him with a man that was far more desirable than he, with no obvious guilt while he was eaten alive with torment every few months when Sally came to visit, he was bullied at his job by an amateur sleuth and his medical sidekick and, beyond all else, he had lost every sense of credibility in the job he had loved so much, worked so hard for, believed in with all of his fervor. He was the laughing stock of Scotland Yard, the persecuted scapegoat that everyone could swing at, the man without nerves, without a spine and without a brain.

"No sir."

"Good then we'll be needing you up here—" Anderson hung up the phone miserably. He walked on into the night, away from the busy streets and into silence's fold once more.

He stumbled onto a lake, which twinkled welcomingly in the absence of a moon. He strolled out to a great black bridge that cut the lake in half and stood in the center listening to the occasional 'plop' of lake fish leaping out of the water in search of mosquitos and flies.

With the economy as poor as it was, Anderson was doubtful he could find another job as fitting to his skills as the one in London. He hated to think of handing Lestrade that piece of paper with his two weeks' notice and watching the wizened detective's face wrench in disbelief, or worse still, delight.

But as he leaned out over the lake, he couldn't imagine going back to work in the morning. Going back to the whispers and chuckles, the dinosaur jokes, the furtive glances whenever he and Sally passed each other in the hall, the eyes that rolled whenever he presented a DI with his preliminary report.

He realized for the first time, it didn't really matter whether he worked or not. If he quit, they would find some new kid to replace him, whose inexperience would be an even match for his stupidity. If he found a new job, he would work just as hard.

If his wife left him…well, there were other women. She had another man. They would be happier apart, he was sure of it.

Sally…He would miss Sally. She would be the ache that made quitting hard. He would miss her, but was uncertain as to what extent she would miss him.

No Holmes. That alone would make quitting worth it. The slights against his person would stop; he wouldn't be anyone's personal insult-bag. Maybe he could; dare he even think it, gather up some confidence.

A new life, a fresh start, a clean slate; all of those magical things he'd heard about in books or on television that happen to wonderful people. Could he really hope that he could turn his life around just like that? With a few broken strands?

His phone chimed. He absently reached down to answer it. It was a photo of a new ipod, shiny with chrome and gleaming with apps and pixels.

He pushed a button to send a reply and carefully began constructing the full accumulation of his heart's desire, when he noticed something bobbing on the surface of the lake. He flashed the light of his phone over it, and discovered a moist, soggy fluff of cotton floating on the rippling waves like a cloud.

He saw another, and another, and followed the trail of cotton until he found the drifting carcass of what appeared to be a hallowed stuffed bear. It was too far away to reach, but even in the dim light by his phone Anderson could make out a smear of blood around the thing's one black eye.

He smiled, sighed, and began to laugh. It was a strained, wretched sound; his chest heaved from the misuse of the muscles.

He placed his phone on the wooden floor of the bridge and let the lights grow dim on the message: "We should get a divorce."

He peeled off his shirt, shoes and socks and placed them on his phone, and without further ceremony dove into the rigid waters of the lake, pausing only long enough to pull the latex gloves out of his pocket and put them on his slippery hands, so he couldn't further contaminate evidence.


	37. Prelude

Once, as Anderson lay prostrate beside a body, minutely picking at a long, fibrous tissue that had attached to the gore of the victim's traumatic head wound with his long, cold tweezers, he received a text.

His instinct was to answer it immediately, but it was against the rules to even have one's phone on while gathering evidence at a crime scene, let alone start texting.

Then again, that never seemed to stop Lestrade.

Nonetheless, he finished gathering his grotesque harvest and stowed the evidence away in a sealed disc before even hazarding a glimpse at the caller ID.

It was the wife.

He shed his blood stained gloves and disposed of them in the bright red and yellow biohazard bin before touching his screen.

Wife:

**Sorry, was on my way to Brixton this morning, and your ipod slipped off the counter. I'll replace it, don't worry. –Love you. **

He read it three times before the meaning seemed clear to him. His wife had broken his ipod on her way to cheat on him, and this text was an apology… for the ipod. He laughed.

"There's a woman lying dead." Sally Donovan said mirthlessly as she stepped out from behind the wall of the next room, where she had been directing the collection of evidence. "What's so funny?"

"Ah. Nothing." He said stowing his phone in his pocket again. "Just the wife."

Sally cocked her eyebrow curiously. "Is she out?"

Anderson felt the wonderful, warm rush that thrilled him whenever Sally whispered breathlessly "Is she out?"

"No." he said blithely, letting the brief, delusional euphoria melt into his toes.

"Oh." Sally said, confused.

Sherlock Holmes stormed into the room, his black belstaff coat introducing a myriad of foreign contaminates into the crime scene, his great sweeping strides lifting the dust and evidence from the top layer of the great black floor. Anderson groaned.

Sherlock Hovered over the body for a number of minutes, scanning it with his little magnifying glass. Finally, when he was done he confronted Anderson.

"You removed participates from the wound. Where are they?"

Anderson held up the little dish which contained all of his hard work. Sherlock snatched it out of his hands.

"Interesting." He mused examining the dish from all angles.

When he had no further use for the evidence he shoved the dish back to Anderson, as though it were something truly abhorrent.

"Stuffed animal, probably from a Chinese manufacturer, not present at the scene, of course, but probably nearby. The killer knew the victim, gained entry to the house at an earlier date and switched one of these…" He paused and took a breath, gesturing at all of the bears and animals that stood on pink shelves above the body. "…toys with one that had some heavy object hidden inside. Possibly a dumbbell. The victim wasn't in the habit of taking down these things to play with…no. Look at the dust on each shelf. Look at the dust on each bear! These were collector's pieces. If someone were to pull on down she might have flown at them in a rage. Hoarders usually do. When the killer chose his weapon from the army of toys he incited an unknown wrath, hence the defensive wounds, even though this has all the signs of a premeditative attack. The killer is a friend or family member, or at least trusted, with scratches on his face and arms. Obviously a man."

With that, Sherlock Holmes left the crime scene and Lestrade went to arrest whoever fitted Sherlock's description, leaving him and Sally to finish gathering the evidence for the prosecution, feeling more useless than ever.

"Do you ever wonder if he is capable of deducing wrong?" Sally asked as she helped him check the body for fingerprints.

"The process of deductive reasoning is basically the same as police reasoning." Anderson rattled as he flicked on his black light. "He takes a bunch of evidence, and builds a conclusion out of it. It's not easy to prove wrong."

"If he does all the same things we do, then how come we both come to different conclusions?"

Anderson shrugged. "He uses a lot more evidence, with a lot smaller detail. He's more…" He searched for the right word, but being unable to find it immediately settled for " OCD?" then changed his mind: "Specialized?"

"Thank you, Anderson." The dark voice of Sherlock Homes wafted from the room behind them. "You're not _completely_ incompetent. But..."

* * *

**Due to the flush of panicked reviews I feel inclined to inform the world I did not intend to kill Anderson. He went to collect evidence, that's why he botherd wearing the gloves and taking off his clothes. He would have left his clothes on if it were suicide. See?**


	38. 37

**37.**

He's eaten Monkey once. Sherlock used him for an experiment. That is why no one sends the detective for lunch at the Yard anymore.


	39. 38

**38.**

He's also eaten paper before. On a dare from Sally, months before the bar, he'd eaten an entire (unfilled) report solely because she asked him too.

Alright, she paid him five pounds, but the money was inconsequential. He would've eaten his credit card if she'd asked him to.


	40. 39

**39**

When he was young his parents had a cat. They'd had it before they'd had him and the cat stayed long after his father was gone, so he could almost say that they grew old together.

One day, when he was seven he was watching telly and the cat was sleeping on his lap. Every now and again he would pet it and it would stir lightly.

His programme went off, and he petted the cat, but it didn't stir.

He thought nothing of it and continued watching telly.

A few minutes later though, he became conserned and started to shake the cat.

When it didn't move, he screamed and cast it off his legs horrified.

It's body fell to the floor like a heavy weight, and Anderson felt a new horror. He crawled off the couch and embraced his old friend apologizing.

That was how his mother found him when she came home from work hours later, with the dead cat in his lap. He'd been quietly whispering to it, pleading with it to come back. Promising to make up for beng a bad friend


	41. 40

**40.**

His first kiss was the most romantic and picturesque moment he could have ever imagined. It was with a girl much, much prettier than anyone he'd ever dated before, it was at the homecoming dance, she had just ran out to catch her breath beneath some sort of floral tree and the soft strands of the last slow song of the night still floated dreamily over the two of them.

He'd held her hand, she had turned and placed both of his hands carefully around her waist, draping herself over his shoulders. He never found out is it was the tree, or her that smelled so wonderfully indulgent.

They danced in a circle for a few moments, he observed the moon was full and looked really pretty over the still-wet trees. The dew sparkled like silver, and the moon was an enormous crème colored cookie, so close they could have reached out and touched it.

She leaned in, then he leaned in, and then they both simultaneously, in an unspoken agreement turned their heads to the right. Anderson was giddy with the perfection of it, nothing in his life had turned out so well…EVER!

He decided that she was the girl he wanted to marry.

She decided she'd left her date waiting at the punch bowl for long enough.


	42. 41

**41.**

Once upon a time, he'd found a book under a body at a crime scene. It was the first volume of a two volume set of the complete works of Charles Dickens and it was huge.

He thought to himself that there might be insect larvae, or a message inside, so he opened it.

The last thing he heard was Holmes shouting at him and a loud popping, like someone breaking a broomstick handle. The last thing he saw was a white curtain and a watch with an ice cream cone where the number three should have been. The last thing he felt was a rugby-style tackle colliding with the left side of his being.

He woke up in the hospital to the faint aroma of Sally's perfume, even though he was alone in the room.

Well, not alone, as he found out about an hour later when John Watson paid him a visit. Separated only by a curtain, Sherlock Holmes had spent hours sulking silently after pushing him out of the immediate range of the blast and taking the worst of the bomb himself.

The first words he heard from his savior: "Hello John. Don't breathe, there's an infection of stupid in the room that I'm still waiting for the nurse to cleanse."

Thanking him had been hell, but Anderson was always glad that he did.


	43. 42

**42.**

When he was seventeen, he ran away from home. A police officer took him back to his mother after man-handling him off a bus bound for Brixton. In the squad car, the man gave him a long, quiet talking-to. He asked him what he wanted to be, and what he thought about music.

When he arrived at his house, he didn't want to leave the car.

The officer gave him his number, and from that day on he visited every now and again to see the officer.


	44. 43

**43.**

The officer was killed in 2005 at a traffic stop just outside of London. He was less than two months away from retirement. His wife had been killed two years earlier by an armed burglar who had tried to rob their house while the officer was on duty. It had been more than four years since Anderson had seen him.

Not being there to help his hero through the death of his wife, not being there period for the man who had always been there for him has always been one of Anderson's greatest regrets.


	45. 44

**44. **

Once when he was in a restaurant, he found a cockroach in his vegetable medley. Working with bugs and dead bodies all day meant he could tell the bug had been steamed with his vegetables. He threw up in the parking lot and never returned, nor did he tell any of the other people he could see eating what he had found.


	46. 45

**45.**

When he was nine he kept a pet lizard in a shoebox under his bed. The lizard's name was Steven and he was Anderson's best friend until his mother cleaned his bedroom. Then Steven went to college to become a herpetologist without saying goodbye. Anderson was upset for four months before he realized lizards couldn't go to college. Steven had been tossed out of his second story window, much to his horror and his mother's disgust.


	47. 46

**46.**

His favorite novel is, and always has been _The Maltese Falcon_ by Dashiell Hammet. He wishes he could be as hard as the main detective, always playing by his own rules and saying snarky, sarcastic things to people in a position of power, like Lestrade. In truth, he realizes he's a bit of a goody-two shoes and one of the things he hates about Sherlock is that he _can_ say all those hurtful, biting remarks without real punishment, whereas Anderson would probably lose his job.


	48. 47

**47.**

His wife's favorite novel is a romance novel called _Shanna_. It is at least six hundred pages long and to Anderson is the most boring, unoriginal book ever published. He made a deal with her one night that he would read _Shanna_ if she would read _The Maltese Falcon_, then they would be able to chat about something other than their work.

Needless to say he hasn't read _Shanna_ yet.


	49. 48

**48.**

His favorite movie is _Singing in the Rain_. When he's on a street, alone, while the London sky pours forth its never-ending bounty he will sometimes sing, in a low, low voice so as no one passing by, or in houses can hear him at all. Those times for him are magical.


	50. 49

**49.**

His hair is naturally brown. His beard, when he chooses to grow one is naturally red. He shaved it solely because Sally commented he looked like a villain, due to his obviously fake beard. He still wants a beard though.


	51. 50

**50.**

Yes, he's met Mycroft Holmes. Well, met is a strong word. He's been glared at from across a busy street by Holmes the elder. He also suspects he's been audited by Holmes the elder. He has no proof though, other than Sherlock behaving suspiciously nice to him that same week.


	52. 51

**51.**

One night, as he prepared for bed there was a knocking on his door, three strong taps.

When he answered the summons he found Sally standing under his porch light, soaking wet and pale as a sheet.

"Hey, let me stay here tonight; yeah?" She pleaded with him, rain streaming down her face like rivers of tears.

How could he refuse?

He found out later the boyfriend she had (Anderson himself didn't count) had threatened her. He never found out how, though. She spent the night on his couch since the wife was in bed already and when Anderson woke for work the next morning he found a folded blanket on the couch and a thank you note.

A little while later that same boyfriend was charged and convicted of assault on an elderly gentleman in a botched robbery that placed the old man in the hospital.

It was general consensus that Sally's ex was an idiot, doubly so for insisting all the while, in the face of blatant guilt that he was innocent.

It always struck Lestrade as funny how all the evidence they needed was perfectly set out for them.


	53. 52

**52.**

He started smoking when he was fifteen.

He quit just twelve days later when his mother found out.

He started again when he met Sherlock Holmes. The consulting annoyance always smelled like smoke, and one day the urge was just too irresistable.

He quit when he saw the patch on Lestrade's arm, and realized how hard it would be for Lestrade if he smelled of smoke as well.

Sherlock decided to quit that same week too. Anderson saw him and Lestrade comparing nicotine patches. Anderson used the gum, and had nothing to compare. Even when they shared the same experiences, Anderson was always isolated.


	54. 53

**53.**

His favorite quote does not come from his favorite book, it comes from an American novelist who died before he was even born.

The quote goes: "Knowing a man well almost always leads to love and never leads to hate." -John Steinbeck.

He has the quote printed on a small yellow note tacked to his computer. He asked Sally to write it for him. When his work reaches a lag, such as when the mass spectrometer is whirring away endlessly and fingerprints are being run he'll find himself staring at the long, luxurious swirling letters. The message is branded into the back of his mind.

He finds it oddly suits him.


End file.
